Page 47 of Green
Theo: Someone just dropped a bag of dog shit in our garbage bin. If you text back anything at all in three seconds I will go outside, retrieve the dog shit bag and throw it at him.
(Ten seconds later)
Theo: Lucky bastard. He didn’t even have a dog with him. JK
Theo: Where do you get those tortilla chips that I like?
Me: Los Cinco Puntos on Cesar Chavez.
Theo: How did you find out about this place?
Me: Caterer from two jobs ago. Gotta go busy Xx
Theo: Say hi to Ben for me.
I did realize he was flipping out because in the past I had told him that location shoots are basically a cast and crew sex camp. It’s not an exaggeration—but I had regaled him with other people’s hookup stories back when I was still with Andrew, back when there was no chance I’d be one of the hooker-uppers.
Now that I was a free agent I not only had to deal with sex camp jitters, I was also dealing with a bizarro housemate situation.
Ben was great. I liked seeing him at work. He was really good at his job, and having an on-set crush was not just a bonus, it felt necessary because of the long hours. He was a perfect on-set crush. He was a perfect flirt. A perfect gentleman. Most of the time.
He brought his dog with him, and she was adorable, so I’d go for quick walks around the Best Western with them in the morning and after we’d wrapped for the day. It was nice. But I could tell that he was ready for more. And I could tell that I wasn’t. Quite. Yet.
I was having lunch with Ben when I got my nine hundredth text of that day from Theo.
He sent a pic of what he was eating at our place, Winsome, at the counter. He got my favorite dishes—the potato chips with crème fraiche and fried egg sandwich. He usually ordered the cauliflower salad with chicken. Seriously, what was wrong with him?
“That Theo again?” Ben smiled as he looked up from his salad, to me, then back to his salad.
“He’s having lunch at our favorite place on Sunset. Taunting me.”
“You should send him a picture of your taco. Show him what he’s missing.”
Ummm. No.
For the life of me, I couldn’t tell if he was being dirty or not. Maybe Ben didn’t know that taco was slang for vagina? Or was he just that good at delivering a sly joke? Maybe that’s why I had been intrigued by him. I just couldn’t quite figure him out.
Although, to be fair, I couldn’t figure out any of the guys I’d known. I thought I’d known everything there was to know about Andrew—wrong. I thought I’d known everything I would ever know about Theo—probably wrong.
“You want to grab a drink after we wrap tonight? If we wrap on time, which we should, it’ll be earlier than usual.”
I assumed he meant a drink with the gang, including Julia and Jason. “Probably. I figured Julia and Jason would go off on their own tonight.” They had finally started hooking up, once we got to Palm Desert.
“I’m sure they will,” he said. He finished chewing his food and swallowed, before saying: “I meant just you and me. There’s a bar in Palm Springs I think you’d like. I’d like to take you there. Just us.” He watched me for a response.
Just us.
Those two little words had somehow managed to tense up my entire body.
Those two little words had been reserved for me and Theo for years.
If I did this, if I really went on a date with Ben and really had sex with him, it would mean that I would be moving in the direction that I had meant to move in for the past year—away from Theo. It had been my intention, my goal, my desperate desire. Ben was cute, nice, uncomplicated, willing. So why didn’t I want to go for a drink with him?
“Um. I’d love to,” I found myself saying, “but I’m so tired. I really need to catch up on sleep.”
“You sure? You can still be in bed by ten. Asleep by eleven.”
Ew.
